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[Devlog]The mediocre Fairy Wars

A topic by revengeZN created Jan 25, 2020 Views: 775 Replies: 16
Viewing posts 1 to 15
Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

A touhou fan game staring Cirno and the other fairies from the series. Name subject to change.
The game will be a 2D puzzle platformer where you can switch between characters and use their different abilities to solve puzzles.
Despite the series being known for flying characters, there will be no flying in this game due to gameplay reasons, and if there's enough time, plot-related reasons as well.

Made with Godot 3.0.2 Stable
The current goal is to at least get a working Cirno Character with placeholder art and at least a playable level within 2 or 3 days. 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Day 1


Some small progress. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I spent a lot of time just trying to make that one small block near the end appear the way I want it to.

Since the core of gameplay is almost there, i guess I'll focus on art assets tomorrow.  I will turn that moving block into Cirno, or at least a placeholder Cirno. The gameplay comes first before the looks after all, not that I expect this one to turn out  really good -_-
As for the music... gg.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Day 2

After lots of time and extensive research (a.k.a. non-stop googling), I was finally able to learn how to add backgrounds with parallax effects.
I was also able to implement the character switching mechanic, yay! I'm ashamed to admit it, but that one took hours to figure out.
This is already too much for me.

Maybe I should just cool my head and just draw some stuff tomorrow, such as concept art/icon/logos just so that I could get some sort of direction.
Also the ground and tiles needs some more work, so I'll try to make them look better some time soon.
Animating sprites will come at a later time because those things take too long to make.


The controls and movement are a little rough around the edges but I'll polish them as time goes by. I still can't figure out how the GOD DAMN slopes work though, so they're going to be just for decoration in the mean time.

My current goal is to at least make a perfectly playable level 1 and two functioning playable characters, Cirno included. I don't want to get ahead of myself so I'll just focus on the small things.


TL;DR
Today's Progress

  • Added some sprites and Background
  • Added new tiles
  • Added Character Switching function

Goals for tomorrow

  • Draw some concept art
  • Draw Icons/logos/more backgrounds/more tiles
  • Create 2nd playable character
  • Try to create the first level

That's all for now. I don't want to overextend myself and try to do things that I'm not prepared for just yet.

Host(+1)

oh great progress! honestly when i would solo dev i would bounce between things whenever they got really frustrating or tiring haha. it definitely keeps it fresh! i think slope collisions are definitely tricky, so honestly i wouldn't be surprised if that was a reach goal for your platforming mechanics.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

"i would bounce between things whenever they got really frustrating or tiring"
I should definitely give this a try.

(+1)

Super adorable, I feel you on that non-stop googling. And you're making such fast progress too.

Submitted (1 edit)

Whoa! Thanks to you both for the feedback! I appreciate it
Now then, update time.


Day 3

First things first. Gameplay related updates

Today's Accomplishments
  • Improved the texture of the tiles slightly
  • Added new character sprites ( but they're still placeholders though)
  • Polished the block creation function (player character no longer teleports away, blocks now linger and then disappear after a few seconds)
  • Character switching now works with no almost no errors
  • Added an MP meter to see if I could work with it (Switching Characters cost 1 MP)
  • Added a text that tracks the very moment the MP of the player character regenerates
  • Completed the layout of the very short "Level 1" (now I just have to add obstacles and puzzles)


I spent quite some time trying to look back and forth between different google results just to make the "Block Summoning" work without glitching out.
My concern is regarding today's progress is the Character Switching camera movement. It looks like two different footages were spliced together, when in fact that is not the case. Maybe I should hide the weird camera movements by flashing the screen every time a Character Switch happens.

Anyhow, as you can see, the graphics are still a little rough, so I'll have to spend some time in the future just to make them look at least presentable.
Onto the next news...

Concept art

...Yeah. They're a little rushed.
The two characters you are seeing right now are Cirno and Sunny Milk from the Touhou Project series.
In this game, Cirno can create ice platforms that anyone can step on and Sunny can shoot lasers that destroy objects. There will be more stuff in the future of course.

Anyways, since there are only two playable characters at the moment, I've decided to make some concept art for the two of them. This means that what you are seeing right now IS NOT the final design of the characters. I'm still brainstorming about what I want them to actually look like. In the mean time, this will do.
I want their designs to be not far from the original, yet as simple as possible. I don't wanna suffer when I eventually make their real sprites.

Because I plan for the game to have some sort of drawn story cut scenes, I decided to make up some new and simple designs for them, I don't want to draw intricate patterns on their dresses all day after all.

You may have noticed that there is a "Sprite Version" and "In-game Sprite". The "Sprite Version" is just a temporary placeholder for my current character sprites. Meanwhile, the in-game sprite is what their actual sprites would look like in the game.

What's with the wheelchair you ask?
The truth is, this game is actually loosely based on the final arc in the Official Manga called "Visionary Faries in Shrine". If you have read that manga before, you will understand the reference, but if not, well... I don't wanna spoil too much. All you need to know is that the Wheelchair is important to the game.

Stone Forms
Well, actually, these are supposed to be "Stone Cherries" from the manga referred to above. These are what we will be calling "Power-ups" and the reason that we can switch and play with only one character at a time. I don't have any more info I can give at this time.

I'll  probably draw another concept art some other time.



^ temporary game icon

Goals for Tomorrow

  • Add some puzzles and obstacles for "level 1"
  • Try to implement the "Shooting Lasers" ability for Sunny Milk (the red character)
  • Fix the Character Switching camera or at least add flashy effects to hide the glitchy camera movement
  • Maybe try making some sound effects or music. There's probably a ton of free software out there, and I can just watch youtube tutorials.

That's about it for now. I probably won't do anything too big tomorrow. I don't wanna pressure myself.

Submitted(+1)

Day 4

Not a lot of progress today.
However, the camera issue during character switching did get fixed.

Finished the first level or "stage 1" if you would like to call it that. It's basically a tutorial stage so it's very short.

There will be actual puzzles soon.
In the mean time, i was also able to manage to allow the other playable character to shoot in all directions.

Might be useful for shooting blocks to solve puzzles... or against enemies.  i dunno

I plan for certain actions to cost mana to prevent spam or abuse.

Too bad about the music, I didn't even get the chance to attempt in making some.


Goals for Tomorrow:

-Music or sound effects, maybe
-Level 2
-Some animated sprites if possible
-HUDs


That's all of the progress for today. Quite a small progress, if I do say so myself.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Day 5

Added some more polish to the gameplay and I also managed to clean up my messy codes. At least I think so.|
Just like yesterday, there's not much progress  with the game other than making it feel slightly cleaner.

With the direction this is going, i think I'll probably ditch the "wheelchair" gimmick while I still can. I still haven't made the moving sprites yet after all.

To be honest, I don't know what will become of this game in the following days.



Goals for tomorrow:

-I dunno. I'm kinda confused right now. I'll should probably just work on what I can.


That's all for today.  I might rename the game soon, since at this rate, it'll be impossible to make a whole "Squad" of playable characters before deadline.

Submitted(+1)

Looks great so far! Great to see gameplay.

Submitted(+1)

Just gonna post the days I missed all at once.


Day 6 - Change in Title and Game direction

I have decide to change the title and the way the game works. Of course the story changes as well. This is the game cover btw.

The game is now called "The mediocre Fairy Wars" in reference to the Touhou game "Great Fairy Wars" since this game borrows elements from "Great Fairy Wars".
Previously called "The Fairy Squad" where you are supposed to control a team of faries who switch between characters during the game and a supposed boss fight against Okina the secret god who sits on a wheelchair, you now control only Cirno, who's out to get revenge on the other faries, well in this case, just Sunny, because the game only reaches up until that point. 

Instead of focusing only on puzzles and platforming, I'll be adding some sort of minor combat as well.


Day 7 - Literally nothing

Had to go out and sleep at another house. Had no access to my computer during this time.

Day 8 - Gameplay updates, Bug fixes, and Transition effect

In this gif, i set it so that the character has unlimited MP. That is not the case in the final game.

The Gameplay Update -
You now only play as Cirno and the summoned blocks now have physics to prevent abuse where you can fly just about anywhere.  There will also be obstacles and enemies. At least that's what I plan to add in the near future.

The Bug Fix -
There was a bug that causes you to get stuck when you attempt to summon a block while there is a tile above you. Now you can no longer summon a block if there is something above your head.

The Transition Effect-
I finally figured out how to do transition effects! Thanks to CryptidMimikyu for the help on this one.



Goals for tomorrow:
-Improve the character movement
-add basic enemies
-add some obstacles
-add Items
-add actual HUD elements that display your status
-better tiles
-some sound

Submitted(+1)

boing

Finally figured out how to make enemies yeeeee

Submitted(+1)

Day 9 -

Gate functionality and enemies! Working HUD! The pieces are all coming together!

Submitted

Released a Demo:

https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2020/rate/555614


If you noticed, the cover looks different. I will use the actual game cover above once I post the last update.
In the mean time, I'll stop with the daily updates since I only have few, but very time consuming things left to do.

-Music
-Animated Sprites and better tilesets
-Items
-Shop
-a Boss fight at the end

The game will be very short since I don't really intend for this to be a full game.

Host(+1)

congrats on releasing the demo!! all of your progress has been really awesome to see, especially the gates and enemies.

Submitted

Thank you for giving my progress some attention

Submitted (1 edit)

Last update:

Final version of the game released.
I managed to put in some animated sprites and music. A shop and  a boss fight also made its way in somehow. 
It's a shame about the sprites for the generic enemies and item pickups though. I couldn't change them because making new sprites is too boring and time consuming.

And about that really old copyrighted music at the end when you beat the game... Never mind, I'll leave it at that.
In the end, it's just for a joke. I'll change it if necessary though.

Link to game:

https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2020/rate/555614